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Monthly Archives: December 2013

Mr. Lombardo said the reason he started teaching was that he liked taking the classes in college and liked working with kids. His favorite school subject is science. Mr. Lombardo attended college at Northeastern University. If he was not a teacher he said that he would be a marine biologist. If you don’t know this already Mr. Lombardo has many pets like snakes, lizards, and a dog. Mr. Lombardo also helps outside of school; he teaches high school lacrosse. Mr. Lombardo prefers lacrosse over football even though he helped coach our football team. His favorite activity is going to the gym. As you can tell Mr. Lombardo is a very interesting guy.

In Social Studies we just finish South America and now we are going on to Africa. We are studying the western region of Africa and we had a test on Friday the 13th. We just finish doing our poster for the Sahara desert and we are now presenting it to the class. About western Africa we are going to study 17 countries and capitals of them and we are going to need to know where to label them on the map. We just finished the Western Africa test and now we are moving on to the next region of Africa. The next region we are going to study is the south region.

In ELA we just finished our choice read book where you read a book of your choice and read it in about 2 weeks and then do a project about it. Next you present it to your class to try and to explain why it’s a good book and why you want other people to read it.

We are starting to read Afrika by Colleen Craig and we are reading 1-2 chapters a night. When we finish we are going to make a blog about it with a group. In the book Afrika a girl named Kim is living in Canada with her mom and then they go to South Africa because her mother has to go on a business trip for 3 months. Kim has to go to school there and Kim tires to find her father. We are still working on our grammar worksheets and grammar packets. This is all for the ELA update.

On Tuesday, November 26th, Mr. Sloan, Ms. Pruett, Ms. Davis, Mrs. Beaton and Ms. Parnell had a typing contest to see who could type the fastest. Ms. Scibelli was the referee. Mr. Sloan triumphed in first, with Ms. Pruett right behind him in second, Ms. Davis coming up at third, and Ms. Parnell finishing at fourth. The topics they typed about were “Test Instructions,” “The Enchanted Typewriter,” and “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” How do our teachers feel about this contest? Mr. Sloan joked, “I felt okay. I did not expect to win. Umm…I did not expect to blow the competition away like I did. I just said that to make Ms. Pruett upset.” What are Ms. Pruett’s thoughts about the typing contest? She says, “I feel defeated! I felt so confident! He (Mr. Sloan) was like a sleeper…I can’t believe how fast he types! Maybe at the end of the year we’ll have a rematch. I don’t feel so confident anymore!” Ms. Davis feels that, “I thought it was very enjoyable. I was very impressed with Mr. Sloan’s typing speed and I was surprised at how many errors Ms. Pruett had in the final round, but I understand that she was trying to beat Mr. Sloan. I was kind of disappointed at my score because I scored less than in my practice rounds.” What does Ms. Parnell think? She says, “I liked it, it was fun!” Ms. Scibelli would like to say that, “It was fun, it was exciting! I thought it was a good experience to teach students the importance of typing quickly and accurately.” An end-of-the-year rematch will certainly be thrilling! We can hardly wait!

The play “Surfin Summer” was directed by the talented Nathan Colby! The play takes place during the summer of 1963 and the kids of Point West Beach in Southern California have just graduated from high school and are looking to their futures. Sandy wants to start a singing group called “Sandy and the Sonics” with best friends Zoey and Joanie. Yup wants to live on the beach for the rest of his life. Vinny is going to be in charge of the beach food shack, Ziggy’s, while his Aunt Ziggy, the owner, takes a trip to Greece. Everything changes when the teens learn that the next Gina and Johnny film “Surfin’ Summer” will be filmed at Point West Beach and they were using local kids as extras. The teens get disappointed when they see how the stars of the movie act in real life. Sandy gets brainwashed in becoming the star of “Sandy and the Sonics”, Zoey and Joanie think so.

The play was acted out by very talented OMS students, but the actors shouldn’t get all of the credit. There was very colorful lighting in the background that really went with the beach setting. The sounds were always on time; bravo sound crew. The stage crew were very quick, and also prepared for any surprises on stage. The costume crew was very detailed on what they put on the actors and could be prepared for anything that may happen to the costumes. I saved the bests for last: the dramaturges. The dramaturges made sure the actors knew what they were talking about during the play so that it would be easier to memorize the lines. The dramaturges research about the play. I was a dramaturge for the OMS Fall Play, and I got to decorate a display and I also had the opportunity to be inside of the display. I also got to usher with another dramaturge. There was an after party for the cast and crew; it even snowed! During the after party, the cast and crew saw a slide show of them practicing for the play that the parents who helped.

This year’s annual food drive was a great success. It would not have been possible to get all of the food collected without everyone’s contributions. This year’s school total was 3,918, a new school record. Eight white came in first for the 8th graders with 825 items. Eight green was very close behind them with 824. Good luck next year 8 green. Eight blue needs to step it up next year, they came in last for the 8th graders with 265. Seven blue came in first with 554 and seven white was close behind with 520. If seven white was handing in more food in the beginning we would have had a better chance of coming in first. Every team did well this year; let’s keep it up next year!